The interesting thing is have others slipped under the radar too? There seems to be so many kids that moved to NZ at a young age that are in the current age group teams that definitely haven't lived here for 5 years AFTER the age of 18. If they moved to NZ at a young age was it with parents that were already born here?
It's a strange one. What makes you more of a New Zealander, moving here from 18 months old and spending the next 17 years living in New Zealand but having no blood line linked to the country, or having a grandmother that was born in NZ but you've never lived here?
FIFA or someone could argue that because New Zealand is build upon migrants, a true "NZ bloodline" itself would be Maori, which would make most players in every age group ineligible if it was based on that. Maybe its a sign of how desperate we are for talented players which would come back to development. We should be able to develop enough good players where this isn't an issue.